


First Contact

by Viscariafields



Series: Insubordination [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol, Banter, F/M, Fade to Black, First Time, Fluff and Humor, Foreplay, ME2, canon whomst?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:55:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26976955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viscariafields/pseuds/Viscariafields
Summary: “I’ve always wanted to touch a turian nose.”“A nose? Usually it’s the mandibles.” He flicked them just for extra effect, drawing her eye.“I have some questions about those, too, but no. Your noses are just… so cute.”Garrus crossed his arms at that. “Cute.” Shepard nodded. “Never in history has any human referred to a turian as cute.”“The rest of you is spiky and horrifying, I’m sure, but your nose? I’ve always wanted to run my fingers over the ridges.”“Alright, alright, Commander. You want to play ‘First Contact’? I’m game. You touch my nose, and I’ll poke that pink thing you call a mouth.”~~A non-canon, very silly retelling of Shepard and Garrus's first time together.
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Series: Insubordination [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1968811
Comments: 42
Kudos: 195





	First Contact

**Author's Note:**

> While rated Explicit, this fic does fade to black, so be prepared for disappointment. Shepard and Garrus would both appreciate it if you kept an open mind and a strong sense of humor as they blunder through this.

Shepard rubbed her eyes and tried to remember why she even came to the crew deck. It wasn’t that she particularly disliked her crew, but when it came down to it, they were Cerberus.

And Cerberus was responsible for today’s horrors.

Kaidan had told her about Jump Zero, the bullshit training Earth had put biotic kids through before he got it shut down. Jack’s youth… take all of the cruelty and immorality and crank it up to eleven and that’s what Cerberus created for its own biotics project.

For the first time in her life, she felt lucky to have been born on Mindoir.

She found herself in the kitchen, but she had better beer in her own cabin. Harder stuff, too, which today called for. But she did not want to sit alone with her thoughts while wearing Cerberus colors on a Cerberus ship.

She veered toward the gun battery.

“Garrus, I think you’ll find the big gun is calibrated,” she said before he had turned around.

“Oh, uhhhh, okay.” Garrus hit a few more buttons on the console before surrendering to her. “What’s on your mind, Shepard?”

“Have a drink with me. Upstairs. If you really need to calibrate something, the intercom in my quarters has some static that’s been bothering me.”

“That’s not really what it means to calibrate—”

But she had already turned on her heel and was walking toward the elevator with no doubt in her mind that Garrus would follow. His long legs caught up to her quickly, and when he stepped into the turbolift behind her, he was holding a bottle of something she didn’t recognize but would undoubtedly get the job done.

He made straight for the intercom in her room, because of course he did, even when she could not have been clearer this was a pretense to socialization.

“You know, if you stopped punching the comms to hang up, you wouldn’t have so many problems with—”

“Shut up and get that bottle open,” she groaned. 

Garrus’s alcohol tasted _disgusting,_ but that somehow calmed her. Probably had some dextro flavoring her levo tongue just couldn’t parse. It felt right to drink something truly vile knowing it would depress her nervous system and stop the annoyed thoughts racing through her brain. Hadn’t even had time to work yet, but she found her mood lightening as Garrus fussed with the comms.

“I didn’t actually mean for you to repair them,” she called from the sofa, “It was a joke. Have a drink. Sit down for once on our awkwardly shaped human furniture that doesn’t account for your long legs and talk with me about something that doesn’t have a code name.”

He still finished the job, almost bashful when he replaced the plating on her wall. Shepard poured his drink for him, impatient to see him stop working for the first time in months. She couldn’t explain why she suddenly craved his attention or worried about him when he shrugged off her attempts at talking to him in favor of standing alone in the gun battery, but she couldn’t explain much these days. Just one more thing she didn’t have the time to think about.

With a shake of the head, Garrus shot back his drink, not bothering to taste it, then started pouring another.

“I take it you had a long day, too,” Shepard said as he examined his second drink. She sipped hers, a trial in holding a straight face with such a bitterly awful brew, but the challenge was almost fun. Good practice should she ever face the Council again. Or the Illusive Man, for that matter.

“Yeah that planet was… huh. I guess I don’t have to tell you.” He shot back the second drink, so maybe it tasted foul to turian tongues, too. “Thanks for inviting me up here. Much better evening than I was planning for myself.”

And now the alcohol had kicked in, because there was that familiar warmth extending out toward her toes. “Now that I know I should be using direct orders instead of invitations, we should do this more often.”

“Mandatory relaxation. It’s almost like home.”

“Well if you’d rather work, I could just keep breaking things. The shower was giving me some lip earlier.”

“I’m no plumber, Shep.” He poured a third drink, but simply turned it around in his hands for a bit, something clearly on his mind. She waited for his gears to turn. After bullying him up here, it was only fair. “Shepard, I’ve always wanted to ask…”

She took a deep breath and smiled. It was only a matter of time. “You can touch it.”

“Oh, uh…”

“My hair, right? Aliens always want to touch human hair.” Tali had asked weeks ago. Liara had asked back on the SR-1. Wrex had simply gone for it one day with a terrified crewmate who asked to be transferred later. But Garrus had shown remarkable self-control that led to Shepard wondering if he had secretly asked Kaidan back in the day. Kaidan’s hair might have been better, honestly. He had more of it than Shepard did. Still, the thought almost stung. 

“Yeah, in C-SEC we actually had to make a public service campaign to stop people from touching humans. The Drell got it in their heads that touching human hair was good luck. We had posters around reminding them it was technically assault.”

Shepard laughed, trying to imagine what that poster must have looked like. Various aliens grabbing at terrified and offended humans, probably. _Touching humans: Not even once._ “That is what you were going to ask, though, right?”

His mandibles flexed out and back in. “Well… yeah…”

“You can cop a feel, Vakarian.” She raised an eyebrow. “But only if I can touch yours.”

His eyes widened then relaxed again. “My… Oh, my fringe. That works.”

Shepard leaned forward, offering up her hair, what little of it there was. She kept it closely shaved, though she always preferred running her hand over buzzed hair. Garrus was in for a treat.

To her surprise and delight, he raised a finger and traced along her eyebrow.

“Why only there?” he mused, almost to himself.

“You want to know a secret?” He nodded. “If you look closely, our entire faces are covered in hair. It’s very soft, almost invisible.”

Garrus moved so close she could feel his breath on her chin. “Incredible.”

She couldn’t help but laugh with his awed tone. “My turn yet? Or do you want to touch the lashes, too?”

In truth, she’d felt a fringe before, though on a less willing subject. He angled his head so she could easily reach, and she ran one finger down the length of one of the… uh… one of the… “What are these called as individual, uh, things?”

“Blades,” he responded.

This time she ran her nail down the length of the blade and got a fairly nice scraping sound. Garrus shivered, and Shepard grinned. “Did that hurt?”

“Nah.”

“Ticklish then?”

“… No.”

She bounced her finger on the end, testing the flexibility of it. Not much give, though it did bend a little.

“Alright,” he laughed, “Got your fill?”

“Hmm.”

“I know that sound,” he said, smoothing over his ‘blade,’ “You have a plan. Or half a plan, probably. Alright. Let’s hear it.”

“Well,” she started, still grinning, “As long as we’re, uh, examining each other—”

Garrus scoffed, quickly throwing back the rest of his drink. 

“I’ve always wanted to touch a turian nose.”

“A nose? Usually it’s the mandibles.” He flicked them just for extra effect, drawing her eye.

“I have some questions about those, too, but no. Your noses are just… so cute.”

Garrus crossed his arms at that. “Cute.” Shepard nodded. “Never in history has any human referred to a turian as cute.”

“The rest of you is spiky and horrifying, I’m sure, but your nose? I’ve always wanted to run my fingers over the ridges.”

“Alright, alright, Commander. You want to play ‘First Contact’? I’m game. You touch my nose, and I’ll poke that pink thing you call a mouth.”

She almost choked on her drink. “Damn, Vakarian. Just be gentle.”

Garrus scrunched his nose as she drew her finger across it. Harder than human skin, sure, but still softer than she thought it would be. It occurred to her the only time she had previously touched a turian face was when punching one, and, well, when trying to staunch the bleeding when Garrus got hurt. Her gaze unconsciously shifted to where he still wore a bandage over the damaged skin and mandible.

Garrus cleared his throat. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t touch there just yet. The nerve endings are still healing, and they feel… weird.”

“Yeah, of course,” she replied, finger still on his nose. She would rather not think about how she almost lost him back then anyway. Back to the mission at hand. It _was_ cute, all short and kind of scrunchy. She tapped it a couple times, but he pulled away when she stuck a nail between the ridges.

“That’s just weird,” he muttered.

Shepard leaned back and considered the next part of the deal. “Just don’t—just don’t put your finger _in_ my mouth?”

 _At least not yet_ , she thought, throwing back another drink in preparation. Her eyes scanned over his very alien body. She would need to be way drunker for that. Probably. She wasn’t even sure her new Cerberus body would _let_ her get that drunk.

Garrus just stared at her. “What do you call those again?”

“Lips, same as you.”

“Really.”

She rolled her eyes, but when Garrus brought his talons up too quickly, she instinctively jerked away from him. Damn N7 training. He hesitated, hand in the air, a questioning look on his face.

“Our lips are sensitive,” she told him, “That’s why they are a different color than the rest of our face.”

He dropped the hand. “I thought you used face paint for that.”

“I mean, we do, sometimes, but not now. And I know you know it’s called makeup.”

Garrus examined her, a frown on his face, and she realized he was using his visor to get information on her. “Increased blood circulation,” he murmured.

“Lotta nerve endings, Garrus. Sensitive. So just, you know. Poke gently.”

But he didn’t lift his hand again. He didn’t appear to be reading information off of his visor anymore, either. He was just frowning. “Ah, well, blood circulation, nerve endings… they’re not…” He turned his face away from her, muttering more to himself now, “I mean humans _would_ be the species to have it right in the middle of their faces, wouldn’t they…”

“They are _not_ genitalia. Jesus.” Garrus coughed, but Shepard could have sworn he was laughing. “And I swear to god if you scan me with that visor, I will snap it in half.”

“Noted. But just to, ahh, head off any awkwardness…”

“Between our legs, same as you, and if I _see_ you aiming that visor at—”

He took it off and gently set it to the side with a conciliatory bow of the head. On glancing at her, he changed his mind, standing up and placing it on her highest shelf—the one that was empty because she couldn’t even reach it. “No need to take out our interspecies gaffes on valuable tech, Shepard.”

“I know you were just fucking with me,” she grumbled.

“And I know humans use their mouths to do weird things.”

“Yeah, like waste time with turian smart asses.”

He sat down next to her again with a whoomph. “I’ve seen humans use their ‘lips’—” and why was it turians always looked so stupid when doing air quotes— “to kiss.”

“Of course we do.” Shepard drew away from him with a furtive look. “What do you use?”

“My head?”

She laughed. “How very krogan of you.”

“No, wait, that comparison is… it’s nothing like that.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s—it can be very—” his fingers probed the air as he searched for the word he wanted— “affectionate.”

“Sorry, Vakarian, but until I see a demonstration, I’m going to assume turians headbutt each other on their wedding days. Mildly concussed is the best way to make a lifelong vow, anyway.”

Of all the nonsense Shepard had said to Garrus tonight, this seemed to get under his heavily armored skin. He glared at her for what felt like a solid minute, not that he was capable of actually intimidating her. With a huff he put his hands on either side of her head, which was… interesting. Usually when someone had her in a grab, Shepard broke out of it and broke a bone or two for good measure. Garrus’s hands were large and warm, and something about the embrace felt almost cozy. Kind of… safe. When he was satisfied she wasn’t about to jerk away, he leaned in close, his fingers sort of massaging her head. Shepard found herself responding, her breath caught in her throat, her head tilting toward his. It was just a gentle touch—his forehead against hers, but it felt surprisingly intimate. She opened her eyes to find him staring at her—a little intense, but that was Garrus all over, and after the initial surprise, she was kind of into it. Like a gentle, sexy staring contest. Shepard _liked_ contests. Not as good as _real_ kissing, but enjoyable. After another moment there, Garrus pulled away.

“That is how turians kiss,” he said, sounding too pleased with himself.

Well. She _had_ asked for a demonstration. “I can, uh, I can see the appeal,” she replied. Dammit, her cheeks had flushed, she knew it. But Garrus… she knew Garrus. There was no way he had just smoothly come onto her like that. “So, uh, for humans, kissing can happen between family members or friends, but it’s _pretty_ different than what you might do with a romantic partner…”

“Are you trying to figure out if we just made out?”

“Oh, I just want to know how much tongue I should shove in your mouth.”

He blanched, his fragile suave façade crumbling.

“Well isn’t that the deal? First contact and all that?”

“Friendly, Shep. It was a friendly kiss of affection for an old friend.” The darkening of his unplated neck—blushing, she was sure of it—belied this statement. He was lying, but if she called him on it, he’d know she also found it… more than friendly. That they were veering toward more than flirtatious, and she wasn’t even sure when their normal banter had become flirting. Shepard was not about to blink first.

“Then I’ll give you a friendly human kiss of my own,” she said, suddenly two inches from his face. She leaned closer, not quite touching him, though the thought of rubbing her nose against his adorable one was _very_ tempting. “If this were romantic, I’d kiss you here,” she murmured, allowing her gaze to drop to his lips. She glanced up to see him gazing quite intently at her own, though whether with fear, desire, or revulsion, she couldn’t say.

“But since this is a friendly kiss of affection…” She heard his released breath as she moved away and couldn’t help grinning. Friendly, her ass. Slowly moving her face around his uninjured mandible, she picked her target. “I’ll press a kiss to the side, here.”

Very few friendly kisses of human affection involved a tongue caressing much of anything, but if Garrus was feigning ignorance, Shepard had no intention of playing fair. He’d wanted to know what her lips felt like, after all. She just threw in a little extra.

Garrus was sitting very still when she ended it. Too still, really, like he wasn’t even breathing. Like he didn’t trust himself to move.

“Mandibles aren’t sensitive, are they?” she asked innocently.

He cleared his throat, staring very hard at the wall straight ahead of him. “Parts of them are.”

“Only parts? Good. I wouldn’t want any awkwardness to come between our friendly affection.”

He nodded now, his expression lightening up as he almost laughed. “Uh huh.”

She poured a drink and offered it to him, but he shook his head. Shepard shrugged and shot it back herself. In for a penny, in for a pound, and her curiosity had only grown through this exchange. She was having… thoughts. Many of them. Mostly about what a turian might look like in the throes of passion. No, not a turian. Garrus. What he might _sound_ like in the throes of passion, too. And a little bit about what she might look like after finding out. “But, well, speaking of awkward…”

The word sat in the air between them for a moment, an absurd understatement for what she’d just done, an escape route if he wanted it, and a challenge if he didn’t.

Garrus turned his beady gaze on her. “Go on.”

Challenge accepted. “Do you ever take that armor off? I’ve always wondered what’s going on under there. I mean, your armor is so big, but your head is so small—”

“Thanks,” he said flatly.

“I just can’t figure out the shape of your body under that thing.”

“You think my body’s weird, what about yours? I was working with humans for a year before someone told me you can generally determine gender by who has a flat torso and whose is lumpy.”

“Lumpy.”

“You know what I mean.” He gestured vaguely toward her chest.

Shepard crossed her arms over her bust. “No one has ever called me lumpy.”

“Shit, I didn’t mean, uh, I don’t know what humans say about…” He gestured at her chest with very round, very offensive motions. “They’re very, uh, bulbous. But not too bulbous,” he quickly assured her, “I’ve seen more bulbous before—or less bulbous—”

“Stop talking, Vakarian.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Asari also have breasts.”

“Breasts,” he muttered, “that’s the word.”

“Quarians, too,” she added, “I think.”

“Now there’s armor that never comes off.”

She couldn’t help it. She laughed. Hard. God, she had just invited him to get naked and this—Garrus won that round, somehow, and his laughter soon joined hers, the both of them doubling over in mirth.

But Shepard wasn’t down for the count. _Begin round three, Vakarian,_ she thought, wiping tears from her eyes _._ “Are Turians modest?”

He rolled his eyes—a charming human affectation. “Shepard, you’ve never even seen me without gloves before.”

“Wait, that’s not your hand?”

She leaned over to grab at it, but Garrus was faster. He held his hands out of reach while Shepard scrabbled for them, tumbling over into his lap. Before she could right herself, a glove smacked her in the face, covering her eyes.

“There,” Garrus said, “Turian hands, ready for human inspection.” 

She tossed the gloves to the floor and sat up but didn’t give him his space back. They could sit hip to spiky hip. Taking his hand, she could see now that they were the same color as his neck, which made more sense than the black of his gloves, she supposed. They were softer than she thought they would be—the palm almost as soft as hers. Not much plating, which probably afforded them flexibility. That wasn’t what she was interested in, though. Shepard rubbed the knuckle of one of his very long, very thick fingers, the blush already rising at all the possibilities of hands like these. The talon on the end could pose a problem, but with some creative shaving and buffing…

“What are you thinking?” Garrus asked, as if he knew where her thoughts had led her. She crossed and recrossed her legs. With his visor off, he wouldn’t be able to track how her blood was flowing.

“Just about your trigger finger,” she said, wrapping all five of her digits around his one and making a gesture that would have been incredibly lewd if he were human. She swallowed a laugh. “How long do you think it is?”

“Longer than yours.”

She pressed his palm against hers, lining up their fingers. The tip of hers just passed his first knuckle.

“Maybe if you stacked your extra fingers on top of the normal ones, they’d be about the same,” he said.

She laced her fingers with his, extra ones and all. “That’s a really disturbing thought. Just… really gross.”

“Yeah, well, your extra fingers are disturbing,” he muttered.

“Are we married now? You headbutted me, I saw your naked hand?”

Chuckling, he shook his head. “There’s a lot more paperwork involved.”

“So this turian modesty,” she prodded, and Garrus inhaled dramatically at that, “What, you don’t even wear your civvies when having a drink with an old friend?”

“I seem to remember my commander demanding my attention in the middle of duty.”

“You aren’t on duty anymore.”

He turned to face her. “You want me to strip down in your cabin?” Shepard grinned. “Wait, don’t answer that.”

She squeezed his hand. “We could continue First Contact. Upper bodies.”

“Playing xenobiologists?”

“Only if you’re comfortable with it. I promise not to take any samples.”

He stared at her for a long while, his mandibles twitching occasionally. Shepard felt her heart in her throat. It wasn’t the worst come-on she’d ever given, but… yeah, okay, it was the worst come-on in her life. She just knew she wanted more, and she wanted it with him. She was not ready for this game to end. And maybe he felt the same, because when she started to pull her hand from his, he finally responded, “Yeah. Okay. I’ve been curious to see what a ‘shoulder blade’ is.”

He stood up—the better to get his armor off, so Shepard stood up, too. In deference to his modesty she turned her back toward him, gave him some space. Wandered over to the fish tank and pretended to be deeply interested in the goings on of her Thessian sunfish. When the clinking of armor stopped and she heard him fussing with fabric, she shrugged off her own shirt.

“Ready when you are,” she called over to him.

“Well that’s hardly fair,” Garrus called over his shoulder, his arms not yet free of his sleeves, “You’re wearing a smaller shirt underneath.”

“A smaller… you mean my bra?”

“Whatever you call it.”

“For humans—” she started but cut herself off. Garrus wasn’t human, and she couldn’t expect him to know or even care about human norms regarding gender and toplessness. _Right_. She turned her back toward him again, definitely for his benefit and not her own, and took it off.

This was fine. Whatever game of flirtatious chicken they were playing right now, Garrus wasn’t about to come undone by a pair of alien breasts, so it wouldn’t do for Shepard to suddenly show fear. She was going to win, whatever that meant.

~

Shepard was a _menace_. Garrus wasn’t sure what her game was, but it was a game. He had no idea if he was winning. Spirits, he felt like he was winning.

He could not say what possessed him to _kiss_ her, and yeah, they both knew that was not a friendly kiss. He meant for it to be after she had practically asked him to do it, but suddenly he was holding it too long and caressing her scalp and it was a small blessing humans couldn’t hear or parse the rumblings coming from his subvocals.

And then she licked his mandible.

He had never desired a human. He had never even _thought_ about it. Might as well put the moves on the Normandy’s gun for all the physical compatibility they shared. But Shepard wasn’t just a human. She was… infuriating. And confusing. And _fun_. He hadn’t laughed this much in a long time, if ever, and he wanted more. More laughter, more awkwardness, and more Shepard. And Garrus leaned over to kiss her, and suddenly he was _kissing_ her, and it felt right, almost.

Until she had _licked_ his _mandible_.

He had never been this confused or turned on in his entire life.

He sat there trying to remember everything he knew about humans and how he would even know if she was… if they could… What did she even have… going on… under there?

So maybe that was why he agreed to disrobe. Maybe he wanted to see how far she would take this, how far _he_ would take this. It would be a lie to say he wasn’t navigating from the passenger seat as she steered them toward this precipice, that she didn’t give him a hundred escape routes he refused to take. Maybe he had angled them toward the scenic route of whatever this was— _horrible interspecies awkwardness_ , the only rational voice in his mind told him—but damned if he didn’t want to see where they ended up.

He paced himself on taking off his armor. He didn’t want to appear overeager. Of course, when he peeked over his shoulder, Shepard was wandering around the cabin and staring at her fish, and he couldn’t risk her losing interest, either. He worked faster, pulling off his leg armor, too, though leaving the leggings he wore underneath.

In many ways, it was easier get naked in front of an alien, even if it was Shepard. Whatever drew her attention regarding his body, it wasn’t going to be the things turians usually cared about. Insecurities about his hip spur size or shoulder breadth or even any skin abnormalities or scars were irrelevant because she probably wouldn’t be able to recognize them. No, if the rest of the evening was any guide, whatever Shepard decided to focus on would be completely random and a little exhilarating.

Garrus, topless in front of a woman for the first time in longer than he would care to admit, sat down slowly on the couch and patted the seat next to him like he wasn’t terrified. Shepard had the decency to look—well frankly he had no idea what she looked like when she was nervous, if she even had that emotion, but more subdued perhaps. Less confident. Or maybe, like every other human before her, she was horrified by the spiky monster sitting on her couch.

Her eyes raked over him before she sat down with her back toward him.

“Uh, Shep?”

“I thought you wanted to see shoulder blades.”

“Right.”

She put her arms up, elbows back, causing the bones in her back to jut out. Not exactly blades in his opinion, but he ran a finger down the length of one. Definitely not sharp. Her skin pricked up around the trail he left, and he leaned in closer to see tiny little hairs stand on end. _Fascinating._ They were _everywhere._ He did it again on the other ‘blade,’ and this time she shivered, too. Equally fascinating. He traced both talons down the back of her neck and across her shoulder, over the blades and down lower. She was warmer than he expected, and softer, too. No wonder they had to arrest people for touching humans—her skin was incredible.

“Having fun there, Garrus?” she asked, though her voice sounded a little breathier than earlier.

This time he ran his finger down her spine. “Yup.”

“Let me know when it’s my turn.”

Garrus wasn’t certain what he expected from Shepard, but it wasn’t for her to press her entire naked body against his while she ‘inspected his cowl.’

“How do you keep this clean?” she asked, with all the delicate tactfulness of a varen. Her hands were doing something very weird, though not exactly unpleasant, and he could feel her breath on the back of his neck.

“We have brushes,” he said, his own voice feeling very far away as he considered the ramifications of grabbing her waist. He’d stopped himself earlier when she had _licked his mandible,_ but it seemed more reasonable now. Expected, almost. A reciprocation of whatever she was doing back there. A biological imperative before he lost his entire mind. He ghosted a talon down her side to see what response he got.

A muffled, somewhat strangled vocalization, and a pressing of her knees together on the sofa. Interesting.

She pulled herself back until she was facing him again. “I thought it was still my turn,” she breathed, her eyes on his mouth. His mandible twitched with no input from him. She was considering one of those human kisses, and he wasn’t certain how to encourage her to do it. What would a human do? Did they have… signals? It was clear his subvocals weren’t really doing the trick.

“You were taking too long,” he rumbled.

“Uh huh.” She looked away. Damn. "You know, now that I'm looking at your plates up close, they are... shinier than I thought they would be."

"That's why we're so modest. Don't want to go around blinding people."

She touched his chest, though with the toughness of his plates and the softness of her pressure, it was barely perceivable. He mirrored her action, two fingers feather-light on her less shiny and much lumpier chest. She stiffened but didn’t pull away. 

“Human chests can be very sensitive,” she informed him, moving her fingers in a circular motion. He followed her lead, keeping his pressure very light, but stopped when she gasped. “Like right there,” she said, eyes closed. “Sensitive.”

His finger was over the, uhhh, darker part. It probably had its own anatomical name, but now he knew it was sensitive. _Got it_. Shepard wasn’t exactly known for gratuitous displays of pain, so Garrus had to assume her shallow breaths were of a different source. “Good sensitive?”

She smiled, eyes still closed. “Yeah.”

“Hmm.” He ran his finger over the pebbled skin, and watched as the untouched lump puckered up as well. Intriguing. Responsive. As if to encourage him, she pressed her second hand to his chest. Well, she had two breasts and he had two hands, so he traced a finger over that one as well, and Shepard responded. An intake of breath, an arched back, and her eyes, half-closed, focused on his mouth again. The chest wasn’t exactly an erogenous zone for him, but seeing the effect he was having on her, knowing he _caused_ that reaction, Garrus felt his own blood pounding between his legs as he wondered what she was going to do next.

He made it easier for her. He leaned in. Perhaps he was intending to kiss her again, or maybe he was giving her a clearer target, because she pressed her mouth to his, and it was _weird_. But good weird. Great weird as her overly flexible lips sort of moved and traveled and then her blunt teeth got involved and Garrus could get into this. He gripped her waist and pulled her closer, her legs straddling him and that was weird and wrong, not the right angles at all, but he focused instead on moving his lips, hoping it was the right stimulation for her. It seemed to be, because she brought her hands up and around, her small fingers caressing his scalp and _Spirits_ , she was so _warm_ against him. None of this was right, but it _worked_.

She pulled back only to wink at him before kissing his mandible again, and this time somehow more intense—not just his subvocals responded, his very audible voice made a sound of pleasure. It would have been mortifying if it hadn’t just spurred her on. She moved to his neck, the hot, wet pressure of her tongue much better than he had imagined. He tilted his head back to give her a better angle, her teeth at his throat, and for one moment he entertained the thought that this might be _better_ than turian foreplay.

He had to make sure she was enjoying it, too. She’d liked his ministrations to her chest, so he tried to repeat it. Difficult to keep his touches soft when her tongue was sliding up toward his jaw. _Sensitive_. His efforts were rewarded with a moan—higher pitched than her usual vocalizations and oh, Garrus liked the sound of that. He wanted to hear more. He wanted Shepard to— Damn. He wanted Shepard. Whatever this was, whatever that meant, he _wanted_ , and that was enough to stop him in his tracks.

He was going to fuck this up.

“Open your mouth a little,” she commanded, and Garrus did it, only half surprised when her tongue found his.

 _So that wasn’t a joke_ , he thought. For the first time in his life he was self-conscious about what his _tongue_ felt like. He was too nervous now to derive any enjoyment from this, thoughts racing about all the ways this was about to go wrong. _What if she’s one of the allergic levos?_ The possibility that his spit could kill her jolted him out of the moment before remembering she had happily downed half his bottle of shitty turian whiskey, not to mention she’d already had her tongue on most of his neck and face and skin cells came off and now he was thinking about his skin cells in her mouth and—

“Is everything alright?” she asked, “We can stop or take a break, or if you don’t like something, you can just say—”

She started to pull away, but he held in place her by her very supportive waist. He couldn’t tell her what he was thinking. “You know, there’s still one thing I’m curious about,” he lied, as if there weren’t a hundred thoughts racing through his brain right now.

“What’s that?”

He traced the shape of her ear, her chin, down her neck. She closed her eyes, letting her head drop forward to rest against his. Already a master at kissing without even trying. How very Shepard of her. And here he was, fucking this all up. How very Garrus of him. “I’ve always wanted to know…”

“Mhm?”

“What human feet look like.”

She drew her head back as her eyes opened. “Seriously?”

“Your footwear is such a mystery. Do you have toes? You couldn’t possibly have five of them…”

She laughed, dropping her head against his again with a comfort that made his heart clench. “Allow me to illuminate you, Vakarian.”

She kicked her shoes off, and for a moment Garrus was mystified by the fact that her feet were a completely different color than the rest of her. Then she peeled that bit away, and he realized she was wearing socks. Of course. He knew what socks were. She wiggled her way off his lap and plopped her legs down on his.

“Inspect away.”

To his horror, there were actually five toes. But unlike her fingers, which were shaped as fingers might have been expected to be shaped, these were… bulbous. Small. Horrible. Like vestigial abnormalities clinging to her body _and_ , Spirits help him, they had _nails_ like her fingers.

“So?” she asked, wiggling the little monstrosities. He couldn’t look at them any longer. He trained his eyes on the far wall.

“They are, ah, not my favorite part of you.”

She laughed. “Come on, they’re not that bad. What, do they smell?”

“Maybe it would be better if you put your socks back on.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I don’t want you to get cold…” He pushed her legs away, trying to reach for her discarded socks, but Shepard predictably struggled.

“You _are_ serious!”

They wrestled, first to get the socks—and Garrus’s superior reach helped him there—and then to try to get them back on her feet. The two of them fell off the sofa almost immediately, scrabbling on the floor. He couldn’t quite get a grip on her. She kept wiggling out of his grasp, bending in her strange, human ways. She had no armor to grab onto where he knew it wouldn’t hurt, no spurs or plates—just soft human skin radiating heat. But this was a more familiar game for Garrus, who gave up on resocking her and soon just had her pinned beneath him, breathless.

Even with his resounding victory, she struggled a little, her hips shifting here, a leg rubbing against his there, and Garrus got the sense she had let him win. Admiring the way she looked with her pink cheeks and parted lips, he decided that was fine by him.

She licked her lips, and he felt her horrible toes running up the back of his leg. “I’ll put the socks on if you take your pants off.”

Garrus had to take a few breaths himself, his forehead coming to rest on hers while he ‘considered.’ She curled her fingers around his mandible with a softness that made him _ache_. This was probably two years’ worth of mistakes packed into a single evening, but there was no way Garrus could say no.

“Deal.”

~

Shepard woke up first, quietly extracting herself from under Garrus’s arm. She sat up in her bed, admiring the path of destruction they had left across her cabin. Broken glass, from where they had knocked things over, upended chairs from sheer carelessness, and torn clothes. Shepard still wore her socks, though, at Garrus’s behest.

She examined his sleeping, naked form, learning one more thing about him.

“What’s on your mind, Shep?” he rumbled without opening his eyes.

“Oh, just another mystery solved. I’ve always wondered how turians sleep. You have your spurs, your spikes—”

“Blades,” he corrected her.

“Blades,” she amended, “And those hips don’t look comfortable.”

He chuckled. “You didn’t seem to mind them last night.”

“Can’t imagine you curling up on your side,” she continued, ignoring him, “Also the whole chest carapace thing. For a while I wondered if you slept standing up, or maybe flat on your face. Some humans do that, by the way.”

“Uh huh.”

“But now I know.” She gestured to his not-quite-sleeping form. “Mystery solved.”

“Come here.” He pulled her down to the bed, and Shepard couldn’t say that they fit together, because quite frankly, they didn’t. Still, she bonked her forehead against his and threw a leg over him, thoroughly pleased with their arrangement.

“Shepard?”

“Yeah, Garrus?”

“You trained in N7.”

“Sure did.”

“I may not be Alliance, but I know enough to know they specifically train you to fight ‘aliens’ as you love to call us.”

“You have a point there, Garrus?”

He pitched his voice up half an octave, adding in extra trills that Shepard couldn’t have hoped to have made. “’Are turians modest, Vakarian? That isn’t your hand? _Are mandibles sensitive?_ ’”

Shepard couldn’t help laughing—both at his terrible impression of her and that he was absolutely right. There was an entire quarter of N7 training devoted to turian anatomy and how best to drop them. She had just… put that education to better use. “And what about you, Mr. I’ve-seen-more-bulbous-and-less-bulbous? All those years in C-Sec and you never saw one drunk, naked human? Never been to one of the hundreds of asari strip clubs in the Wards?”

“No comment.”

They settled into silence, and just as Shepard was considering whether to bother making coffee or just eating a spoonful of the instant stuff straight, Garrus spoke again.

“So this is the part where we talk about this, right?”

Shepard swallowed. She was great at semi-drunk spontaneous decisions. Taking Garrus to bed had been a surprise, but she had no regrets there. Talking about things, though. That always presented a bit of a minefield. She sat up, wrapping her arms around her knees. “When I invited you up last night, I, uh, can’t say I had this outcome in mind.”

Garrus snorted.

“But I had fun. More than fun. I would be glad to do it again even.”

“Really?”

Looking at him, there was no one else in the galaxy she would rather have in her bed. Or just in her cabin, sassing her. Or out in the field, watching her back. Out loud she said, “If the novelty has worn off already, I guess I understand…”

Garrus blanched. “No, I… Shepard, you’re my best friend in the galaxy. I just don’t want to screw this up. There is no one I respect more than you.”

Her eyebrow shot up. “Even after seeing me naked?”

“Especially after seeing you naked.” Shepard laughed, but Garrus seemed lost in thought. “And after that thing you did with your—”

“Uh huh.”

“And then when you—”

“Mhm.”

“Nothing but respect here, ma’am.” He saluted her sideways on the bed while Shepard giggled. “And, uh, a repeat performance would be welcome for me, too. Might even do some research—make sure I get it right.”

“Research,” she repeated, “Real sexy, Garrus. We can invite Mordin in to coach us.” They both paused to consider that horrifying thought. Shepard threw a hand in the air as if to erase it out of her brain. “Anyway, you did plenty well for yourself.”

“You’ll make me blush.”

She leaned over and pressed her lips to his forehead— a fusion of their kisses that _did_ leave him blushing—before hopping off the bed to get in the shower. Garrus was dressed and ready by the time she was done and had even made her a mug of coffee.

He grinned as she sipped. “You want to see something I didn’t show you last night?”

“Holding out on me?”

“Big time. I need you coming back for more.”

“Show me.”

He leaned his head toward her, and then his fringe wiggled. Shepard almost spilled her coffee, she laughed so hard.

“Holy shit, Garrus. Do it again.”

“You know not all turians can do this,” he boasted while she poked his wiggling blades, “I’m one of the special ones.”

“I’ve known that for a while,” she murmured. She called the elevator as he turned back around to face her. 

“Shepard—”

“You know, after what we shared last night, I think you can call me Nadia.”

Garrus looked like he wanted to say something, but the turbolift doors opened and he just shook his head.

“Think Edi told the whole ship?” she asked, nudging him in the side.

“Well I do _now._ ” 

“You’re cute when you blush, you know that?” The door opened, and Shepard got out at command. “Talk to you later, Garrus,” she called over her shoulder.

“Yeah, because I’m in a great place to be optimizing firing algorithms right now.”

If anyone noticed that Commander Shepard spent the entire day smiling, nobody commented on it.

**Author's Note:**

> Sometime during the events of ME3, Edi gifts Shepard a pair of toe socks. 
> 
> This has been kicking around my brain for years, and I never thought I'd write it. Then when I started writing it, I never anticipated it would be 7k words long. Good on you for making it to the end, honestly. 
> 
> And many thanks to Draga, who got me thinking about Shakarian again and finally writing down some of my silly stories for them.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr as nug-juggler =)


End file.
